1. Organization of the Groups: To carry out this activity I asked my students in 2º Bachillerato to work in pairs. They chose whom they wanted to work with.
2. Sequence of tasks: First of all I told my students that I wanted to put into practice a tool to make comics and I wanted them to do it. Secondly, I showed them the tool we would use and explained to them how to use it. Then we had to think of a topic for our comics and we thought that a good idea would be to use the different idioms we were studying to be the topic of each comic. Idioms like ‘ bucket list’, ‘ have a blast’, ‘kick the bucket’, ‘pull your leg’, ‘ easy as pie’. The different comics would be the perfect scenarios to explain their meanings. After that students in pairs were working on the scripts for the comics. Later students started to work on their comics using the tool but as Coronavirus suddenly barged in our lives, we only could finish one of them.
3. Learning Objectives and how the tool helped to achieve them: Learning vocabulary by heart and without a context it is usually difficult. That’s why I thought it could be easier for my students to learn the idioms mentioned above if we used them in a ‘real’ context making use of Pixton tool to do it. This tool helped them to develop their imagination and creativity.
- Learn some idioms.
- Encourage Collaborative working.
- Develop student’s creativity.
4. In what ways was creativity and use of imagination encouraged? As I said before, this tool helped my students to develop their imagination and creativity, as they had to make up a kind of story, write a script, choose a setting, and design a character… All these things were possible thanks to the tool and its possibilities.
5. What students enjoyed most / least? Taking into account that my students are not the most motivated ones on Earth, I can say that this activity was very motivating for them and they enjoyed everything from the very beginning.
6. What would you change? I would change the circumstances we are living nowadays.
7. How were the finished projects shared? We haven’t had time to share the projects because they haven’t been finished yet but our idea when we come back to normality is to hold an exhibition in class so that everybody can enjoy what they have done.
8. Opportunities to co-evaluate and discuss the learning experience: So far we haven’t been able to do it but we will do it using a rubric designed for that. I will also ask my students to write down their opinions about the experience.
This is an example of the experience using Pixton in class:
Hi, Alicia!
ReplyDeleteI’ve discovered your blog and after reading your posts, I just wanted to share some impressions with you. As for the contents and reflections published, they’re fantastic, thank you for sharing your insights on the use of interesting apps and tools in the English language classroom, I found them quite helpful and practical. I especially liked your post “Bullying with Edpuzzle”: I’d never heard about Bars and Melody before, and it’s definitely important to raise consciousness of the importance of social issues such as bullying, in our current society. On the other hand, if I had to point out something which could be somehow improved… I’d mention perhaps the disposition of your posts. I mean, aesthetically speaking, perhaps it’d look nicer if the cascade disposition of the posts was placed somewhere else, instead of having them right at the top of the page. It’s just a humble suggestion. Thanks for your great work!!!
Hi, Alicia!
ReplyDeleteI’ve discovered your blog and after reading your posts, I just wanted to share some impressions with you. As for the contents and reflections published, they’re fantastic, thank you for sharing your insights on the use of interesting apps and tools in the English language classroom, I found them quite helpful and practical. I especially liked your post “Bullying with Edpuzzle”: I’d never heard about Bars and Melody before, and it’s definitely important to raise consciousness of the importance of social issues such as bullying, in our current society. On the other hand, if I had to point out something which could be somehow improved… I’d mention perhaps the disposition of your posts. I mean, aesthetically speaking, perhaps it’d look nicer if the cascade disposition of the posts was placed somewhere else, instead of having them right at the top of the page. It’s just a humble suggestion. Thanks for your great work!!!